Data distribution system for distributing data via information free zones in a television signal to be transmitted by a transmitter

Claim 1

A data distribution system for distributing data via information free zones in a television signal - to be transmitted to more than one receiver by a terrestrial or an extraterrestrial transmitter - comprising an insertion device for inserting said data to be distributed in said information free zones of said television signal, collection means for the collection and control of data presented to these collection means by various data suppliers, and transmission means for the transmission of said collected data to said insertion device, characterised in that said collection means are formed by a public electronic mail system (1), comprising a plurality of electronic mailboxes (P1...Pn), accessible to users, for introducing, reading out or mutating messages, each of said data suppliers (7,8) introducing its data to be distributed as a message into at least one certain mailbox (Px), and in that said transmission means are formed by a transmission device (6), which, on the one hand, keeps up, as a user of said electronic mail system, a periodic or a permanent connection with that certain mailbox (Px) of the electronic mail system, the messages in that mailbox being read out, and which, on the other hand, is connected to said insertion device (5), said read-out contents of the mailbox being transmitted to said insertion device at those moments when there is transmission capacity available in the insertion device.